Racist 'N-Word' Calls Reported In Pennsylvania

According to the election analysis site FiveThirtyEight.com, some Pennsylvanians have complained about a call that impersonates Barack Obama and includes racial epithets:

"Over in Indiana, PA and Northern Cambria, PA, volunteers fielded complaints of a massive wave of ugly robocalls both paid for by John McCain's campaign and those paid for by third parties. The third party call was interactive, and purported to be from Barack Obama himself. The call starts out reasonably, and then "Obama" asks what the listener thinks is the most important issue. Whatever the response, "Obama" then launches into a profane and crazed tirade using "n***er" and other shock language."

If anyone has received this call, please send us an email so we can follow up.

Comments

[josephjsalas]

08:33 PM on 10/19/2008

These "race" topics sure keep the heat off of Goldman Tax. And to think that blacks, as a whole,
will be first hit by the inflation caused by these bailouts and all the proposed Fed spending/
over production of currency. Then comes the Sachs season.....

[Aaron Haynes]

01:25 AM on 10/19/2008

Someone needs to record this call. If you live in Pennsylvania and have the ability to do so, DO SO, and upload it and send it to news organizations and post it on youtube. People need to hear what John McCain is allowing to be done for his benefit.

[MsDebate]

01:09 AM on 10/19/2008

Huff Post I have to commend you guys for staying on top of things and keeping us informed. I tell everyone I know about your site...

[Nancy84]

11:37 PM on 10/18/2008

Unfortunately I run in to people every day who still think Obama is a Muslim who is trying to take over the country and is anti-american. We can't let up in our support until the "fat lady has sung her last note" Then.... we have to stick close in our support so the republicans don't try to do to Obama what they did to Clinton. These people have to be talked down until they stop believing they are the only Americans.

[butterfly218]

10:21 PM on 10/18/2008

I do wonder if a white mother of a black child were to get that message, how would she feel.All of my kids married someone from another country. Two of my sons live in Japan and have mixed children. My German, polish son in-law, a major in the Army in Iraq is watching McCain and says over there in Iraq, they are appaled at McCain.Here in America,we are all mixed, so am I. I have shared with my kids that Racisim is a mental illness. We are one race, the" HUMAN "race. How can we be devided by race. We are one. The people who feed on hate, like flees on magots, believe that one drop of black blood makes you black. OK. So why does'nt one drop of white blood make black people white?John McCain really does see Obama as superior by that fact. I'm just saying.Obama sees one race, " THE HUMAN RACE "One planet, one people.

[somefool]

10:05 PM on 10/18/2008

Here's a link to a letter filed by Bob Bauer with the Attorney General asking him to have the Special Prosecutor look into allegations of collusion between the Dept. of Justice and the McCain campaign in regards to the ACORN deal.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/Obama-Mukasey/

Finally some pushback by a Dem.

[special muppet]

09:47 PM on 10/18/2008

How about this for a campaign ad:

If some people made up despicable lies about you and your family and spread those lies to undermine you and defeat you, would you ever put your trust in those people again?

John McCain did. In fact every ad you see on the TV smearing Obama, they're made by the same people George Bush used to spread lies about John McCain.

How desperate can you get? Ask John McCain.

[carriellbee]

10:42 PM on 10/18/2008

I like it. Forward it to the Obama campaign!

[CTtransplant]

11:05 PM on 10/18/2008

Perfect!!! Should send it to the Obama campaign!!!! www.barackobama.com

[snarkopolitan]

09:22 PM on 10/18/2008

This is part of the hysteria stirred up by tactics McCain has used already. His campaign may not be directly responsible for these particular robocalls, but they are behind other misleading and inflammatory robocalls. It doesn't matter if this is a third party action or not; the current RNC is so extremist that it's driving away not only independents but traditional conservatives and Republicans.

Ironic that McCain, most at his element in those Georgetown and Hollywood circles he's mocked, has yoked himself to these celebrants of ignorance and intolerance. And to what effect? The ruination of his reputation.

[Ted K]

09:10 PM on 10/18/2008

We call McCain's campaign "The Limbo Campaign."
"How low can he go?"
He continues to amaze, as he plumbs new depths of filfth.

[Futurefear]

09:08 PM on 10/18/2008

I grew up in Cambria County, and my parents still live there . . . In 40 years NOTHING has changed. It's shameful and disturbing, but not surprising. The GOP is playing into the fears of those who, to paraphrase Obama, "cling to religion and guns". It's an apt description for the area. Outside of Altoona and Johnstown, I doubt if most people in Central Western PA have ever actually KNOWN an African American. Pathetic.

[mouselion]

09:06 PM on 10/18/2008

Thanks for staying on top of this. . . if this is true, guarantee you GOP is third-party in 2016.

[IndependenceDame]

08:59 PM on 10/18/2008

Has this been confirmed or is it like the fake Michelle Obama interview?

[zull2]

11:17 PM on 10/18/2008

If you're alluding to actually thinking that the call is real...you tell me. Do you think Barack Obama would sit down, right when he's giving a speech to 100,000 people that is being videorecorded, and call someone and start yelling profanities at them?

Yeah. It's a McCain campaign special. Find the Barack Obama impersonator just like he found the Michelle Obama impersonator, and create a fake call. McCain's so desperate to win, he couldn't care less if some folks think he's a racist. This isn't about perception, it's about whatever last dollars that can be squeezed out of this economy like 6 month old toothpaste.

[tuttlemsm]

12:02 AM on 10/19/2008

I agree. I'm skeptical of this story. I would want to see proof before running with this.

[JJThinking]

08:57 PM on 10/18/2008

Go to youtube and search "obama soundboard."
I think these calls are a hoax.

[fbs]

10:39 PM on 10/18/2008

Indeed, a soundboard hoax would seem to be the explanation for this.

http://www.obamasoundoff.com/

I guess a lot of those soundbites came from the audio version of his books?

[zull2]

11:20 PM on 10/18/2008

At this point, who really knows?

The people doing the hoax are doing it with or without the intention of making someone change their vote, or get really pissed off...or both. In either case, it's no different than what a 527 would do.

Either way, if the calls are popping up in areas that are stereotypically racist more than they are anywhere else, then it very well could be real. They can always hide behind the hoax theory.

[flyerskyer]

08:49 PM on 10/18/2008

Look!! Obama is going to win this, forget the rascist , beer-drinking, uneducated bubbas who know they are poorer and worst off today than they were yesterday. If only these people would open their ignorant eyes, think, and stop listening to the likes of Hanninty and Limbaugh, because these men are rich and have not done one ounce of military service. It's the poor rural white folks who's children are getting killed in this illegal war. So I say: open your eyes and ask yourself are you better off today than you were four years ago and if you are true to yourself it will be resounding HELL NO!!! Get with the majority of thinking Americans rich and some not so rich, from all economic backgrounds and let's do the right thing and vote these war-mongering republicans out of office for good!!! OBAMA 2008

[Ohg]

08:37 PM on 10/18/2008

That don't surprise us much here in Punkin Center, Missouri, we gets calls like that from over in Gentry county all the time. But we is voting for Obama anyways. .................

http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/09/19/rednecks-for-obama/

[noradunn]

01:21 AM on 10/19/2008

There is a pervasive sense that none of the baiting is working with what we are calling swing voters. Swing voters are not ignorant. They are thinkers. They really are the kind of voters who want the facts about what they care about and weigh their options before they commit. They are the opposite of gullible. Tomorrow, Colin Powell should endorse Obama. And who did Colin Powell pall around with?